How Money Makes Money

Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897* edition. Excerpt: ...he carries on his business like any other merchant who buys and sells in a market. If there were no jobbers, a broker could not execute his clients' commissions unless he just happened to come across some one who had the very stocks to dispose of which the client had instructed him to buy, or who wanted to purchase the identical stocks which he was instructed to sell. Jobbers ensure an almost unlimited market in the principal stocks, while brokers are merely middlemen who act between the public and the jobbers. If the public were allowed to go upon the Stock Exchange, as upon every other market, they would establish direct communication with the jobbers (merchants) and save the commission of brokers (agents). In fact, brokers would cease to exist. A jobber is practically a permanent buyer or seller. If the terms suit him, he will buy whether he wants the stock or not, and he takes his chance of being able to sell it again later on; or he will sell, whether or not he possesses the stock, on the chance of being able to buy it cheaper, as the markets fluctuate. Naturally enough, the general public have begun to appreciate the situation; and as they do not care to be mulcted in small sums every time they desire to purchase or change an investment, many dealings are now conducted direct, with independent jobbers outside the Stock Exchange, and brokers' unnecessary services are dispensed with. Dealing in stocks and shares is like dealing in any other kind of merchandise, except in one important respect. While, in most classes of goods, the general public are buyers only, and the manufacturers and producers sellers only, in the case of stocks and shares the public are both buyers and sellers. They know the buying price of most articles: it never comes...show more